The EuroBasket champions from the Czech Republic earned a ticket to the qualifying round after climbing to a 2-0 record with an 86-62 win over Turkey in day two of Group A in Vasto.

This is the second big win for the Czech Republic here after beating Israel by 32 points on the first day.

Turkey chose to rest their top player – Nevriye Yilmaz and Esmeral Tuncluer who suffer

		Hana Machová contributed nine points and five rebounds in the win.

from minor injuries, but are expected to play tomorrow.

Without them it was even more difficult to give a fight against the heavily favoured Czech team.

"We knew Czech is a much better team than us," said Turkish coach Cem Akdag.

"We didn't want to risk our injured players because we have a very important game tomorrow, and it was also an opportunity to give some of the players who didn't play yesterday a chance to play."

There was no room for guessing the direction of this game from the very first minutes.

The Czechs took a 17-4 lead after seven minutes, and even when Turkey replied with a 9-1 run, to finish the first quarter down 20-13, there was not much of a challenge for the Czech.

Eva Viteckova scored ten points in the second quarter when her team sealed the win.

Eight of those points were in a row and made it a 15 point game on the way to a 39-23 lead at half-time, from there it was a done deal.

"It wasn't as easy as it seems from the final score," said Marketa Mokrosova who contributed 11 points, all of them in the second half.

"It's difficult for us to play against short line-ups, but we managed to handle it".

The Czech team will face Latvia tomorrow for the fight over the first place in the group.

Turkey will take on Israel in a win-or-die game, where the winner will continue and the loser will go home.

The second game in Group A in Vasto will bring together the Czech Republic and Turkey.

The Turks want to show they are here to stay, but will need to give their best effort to beat their opponents.

Last night two of their inside players – Nevriya Yilmaz and Yasemin Horasan – combined

		Edita Sujanová had 12 points in the Czech Republic's opening win.

for 42 points and 18 rebounds, tonight they'll need to get some help from the perimeter.

The Czech camp probably didn't expect Israel to give them a hard time for one half, but in the later 20 minutes, made sure to be loud and clear with an easy 32 point win.

Tonight they'll try to decide the game earlier but the Turkish team is another group with big energy that won't give up easily.

Last Time Out: The Czech Republic opened the games with a 75-43 win over Israel, while Turkey lost by 11 points, 73-62, to Latvia.

Head to Head: When Turkey hosted EuroBasket 2005 they faced the Czech Republic, back then the runner-up, in the quarter-finals. After one quarter it was already a ten point lead for the Czechs and the final score, on the way to the gold, was 86-60.

Key Match Up: Eva Viteckova was only one out of six from long range last night. Tonight she will face Yilmaz and that aspect can make a difference. If Viteckova hits a couple of times from distance, Yilmaz will have to step out and her size will be missing under the rims for Turkey.

X-Factor: Horasan tied her EuroBasket career high with 21 points last night, and came one rebound short from doing the same in the rebounds department. Along with guard Birsel Vardarli, who collected five offensive boards yesterday, they can help Turkey to stay in the game. Turkey grabbed more rebounds on offense than defense, and to give the Czechs a fight they'll need another performance like that. Any second chances will be trouble.

Statistics: The Czech Republic scored on 57.4% of their shots inside the arc last night, while Turkey allowed Latvia to hit 54% from that range. In order for this game to still focus attention in the last minutes, Turkey will have to play better defense in the paint, and prevent the Czechs from scoring easy baskets.

What It Means: The champs would like to stay out of trouble and clinch the spot in the next round already tonight, while Turkey will, most likely, need to beat Israel on the last day anyhow.